Time and Eternity: Exploring God's Relationship to Time

I just finished reading the book Time and Eternity: Exploring God's Relationship to Time by William Lane Craig. This is, in my opinion, a very worthwhile read, though one that will most likely take time. The primary question of the book is: Can God rightfully be considered timeless or temporal?To answer the question, Professor Craig begins with a very brief survey of the biblical contribution. Does the Bible prescribe to one view over the other? His answer: no. The Bible, according to Craig is not a philosophical treatise on the nature of time and offers nothing sophisticated enough for us to make a definite conclusion. Concluding that the Biblical data is insufficient he asserts that the issue requires philosophical exploration to consider the issue clearly.He begins by analyzing the arguments for a timeless view of God. Rejecting arguments from the `simplicity and immutability of God (mostly on the grounds that these doctrines are controversial), he moves on to arguments from relativity theory. He starts by detailing a brief history of time (even briefer than Hawking's) and the Special and General theories of Relativity. This is a good and, for the purposes of the book, invaluable overview of the theories and their development, but I'm not positive that it would be sufficient for a full understanding of these developments in theoretical physics. This is by no means a flaw of the book, he did an excellent job making the relevant concepts accessible, but I would recommend looking at other sources to supplement if one is interested in this area. Hawking's book, which I linked above, is excellent. Also noteworthy would be Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos. It is worth praising Craig for his critical evaluation of Relativity theory. He makes several philosophical notes that the two aforementioned physicists do not engage in.The outcome of his overview of Relativity theory is that God should not be considered to have the temporal perspective of an inertial frame nor the sum of all inertial frames. Rather, he explains, that God is related to cosmic time. "Now," he continues, "as a parameter, cosmic time measures the duration of the universe as a whole in an observer-independent way; that is to say, the lapse of cosmic time is the same for all observers." (p. 60) All that to say, the theories of relativity do not preclude cosmic time; God can relate temporally to the universe and this is consistent the the data of physics.So much for physics. He then analyzes the arguments generally proposed in favor of divine temporality. The three arguments he examines are: from the impossibility of atemporal personhood, divine relations with the world, and divine knowledge of tensed facts. The first, considered by logical possibility alone, he concludes as untenable. God could logically exist as a person (or personally, or as Trinity) atemporally. The second fares much better, for God at very least commits to time by the very act of creating. The third argument is presented as the strongest, and is most interesting to me. This deals with `tensed facts'. Here, Craig explains that if God were atemporal the concept of omniscience would be unfortunately diminished. "Tensed facts" are expressed by indexicals that locate events as past, present, or future. Example being: "I am now writing this blog post." expresses the event in present tense as it is happening, whereas tomorrow the tensed statement will say, "I did write this blog post (yesterday)." The point being that if God was not temporal, God could not know the relation of facts and events to the present (as God is not subject to `the present' or `now').Understanding that argument occupies the next two chapters (comprising 100 pages), where he defends the dynamic and tensed view of time against the static and tenseless view.The final chapters "God, Time, and Creation" and "Conclusion" Then look at how the dynamic view of time affect the concept of God and spend time focusing on the doctrine of creation. Here he asks if it is rational to speak of the infinity of the past prior to creation. He then argues that the past can only be spoken of as finite and examines how we can reconcile that with the fact that God has no beginning. I won't expound on this much here, but it should suffice to say that Craig concludes that God was timeless prior to creation but temporal from the act of creation onward.Finally, he includes an appendix in which he presents his argument for exhaustive divine foreknowledge and attempts to reconcile it with his dynamic view of time and human freedom. This is where my only displeasure with the book arises. I do believe the rigor with which he argued throughout the book lacks at this point. As that is only an appendix, I have only praise for the book as a whole.

In Nicolas Tomalin's "The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst", a participant in the first solo round the world sailing race, circling aimlessly around the north Atlantic while trying to convince race organizers that he was in fact leading the race by calling in clever but false position reports, goes insane contemplating the nature of time, and holding the ships clock steps off his boat and disappears under the waves.It is hard not to be sympathetic to Mr. Crowhurst as time, like water to a fish, surrounds and dominates our existence yet is extraordinarily difficult to define and understand. William Craig's book, Time and Eternity, takes on the problem of time and how God must relate to time and makes the topic as intelligible and accessible as I think possible, even while thoroughly discussing and evaluating the different theories of time.As Craig notes in his foreword, this is a book for Christians, and it is clear that some reviewer's presuppositions about the impossibility or silliness of the existence of God have prevented them from appreciating the depth of Craig's arguments. They missed a lot as Craig carefully presents the philosophical and logical arguments for understanding time as dynamic, with a constantly emerging 'Now', or as static with all 'moments' simply being slices of a 4 dimensional static block of spacetime that only gives the appearance of movement to observers. The author concludes that the arguments in favor of dynamic time have much the more defensible and coherent position. He arrives, as noted, by a careful and exceedingly thorough and fair presentation of the arguments for and against these two theories (sometimes referred to as the 'A' theory of time - dynamic - or the 'B' theory of time, that is, static.)Because Craig is a gifted logician and respected philosopher, he makes few declarative statements, but rather lays out the logical arguments for the positions he reviews, then arrives at some key and highly defensible positions:1. Time is dynamic, and we exist in a world where the 'Now' is not mind dependent but a feature of reality.2. Time cannot be logically past infinite. (His chapter on this is particularly articulate.)3. Since God cannot be past finite, prior to His creation of time, He must exist timelessly.This book will appeal to those who, on the mention of God, do not get the vapors with a subsequent shutdown of their cerebral cortex and to those who are willing to carefully read and think through the arguments presented. This is not a book to fall asleep while reading; nor is it entertainment per se. Rather it is a scholarly work, well written as are all of Craig's books, that must be studied to derive maximal value from the effort of reading it. This is not to scare off the casual reader, but to warn that the topic of time can be so abstract that it takes a bit of intellectual effort to understand what Craig is going on about. So if you are interested in the nature and subject of time and reality, and in particular want to explore how God relates to time, this is a fantastic read. Being a slow learner, I took it a dozen pages or so a day, carefully taking notes to make sure I understood the arguments, and having done so recommend the same approach to the serious reader.The only quibble I have is that Dr. Craig seems to give short shrift to Dr. Hugh Ross' notion that God must necessarily exist in multiple or infinite dimensions of time. Craig's references to Ross' speculations on God and time described in his book 'Beyond the Cosmos' seem, at least to me, to indicate that Dr. Craig did not carefully consider Ross' point of view as his dismissal of that view seems based on a superficial understanding of what Ross is suggesting. Be that as it may, for the serious student of time, this is a classic work.

Conclusion : Prior to creation, God is outside of time. Following creation, God is in time.

Excellent

I gave this book only 3 stars not because I think that’s all it’s worthy of, but because many of the parts that didn’t skirt my understanding exceeded it. But the parts I did understand were insightful and I agree with Craig’s conclusion.

I found this book very informative and interesting to read. I would recommend it to others. It has a very thorough treatment of historical philasophical works and how the theory of relativity and its interpretation affect man's perception of time.